It seems like Damian McGinty just started his stint on Glee, but truth is, he’s actually nearing the end of his seven episode run on the high school dramedy. When EW chatted with the Glee Project winner last week, he was wrapping up work on Glee’s Christmas episode (more about that in Spoiler Room) and gearing up to film the last of the seven episodes he was awarded after winning the Oxygen reality show. (Fellow winner Samuel Larsen has yet to debut.)

“I guess Christmas is my 6 and then another is 7, but as soon as I get the episode for the one after Christmas, I will know if they’re going to try and keep me on or not,” says McGinty. “My fingers are crossed because that’s what I’ve been working toward. But I’m just going to take it episode by episode. I’m delighted to do that – I’m having the time of my life and working hard.”

He’s not the only one – his character Rory has had anything but an easy time fitting in at the oft-cruel McKinley High, but he’s luckily found a friendly face in fellow glee club member, Finn. “I think on the show, there’s a bit of a bromance between Rory and Finn,” he says. “Rory doesn’t have any friends…[but] Finn took Rory under his wing and helped him a bit, led him in the right direction and it’s just going to continue. Obviously they talk a lot – Finn tells Rory a few things about America and he’s learning a lot from him. There is a nice relationship there.”

And it’s a relationship Rory has depended on, especially in the most recent episode, which found the foreign exchange student getting pelted with dodgeballs and ridiculed by Santana. But in the next few episodes, says McGinty, “there’s a little more settling” in for Rory as he goes to sectionals for the first time with the New Directions. “We filmed the actual competition Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of [last] week, and it was the craziest three days ever. It was very challenging for me. But I feel like I definitely grew and became a lot more confident,” he says. “It’s well known that I wouldn’t consider myself a dancer at all, but we did a lot of challenging dancing. So it was definitely a growing experience for me, it was also a growing experience for Rory as well.”

Off stage, meanwhile, McGinty has been keeping himself busy stumping for Your Dollar Our Future, a campaign in partnership with Concern Worldwide designed to raise funds for schools in Haiti after the devastating earthquake almost two years ago crippled a large portion of the country’s educational institutions. ”[It] left half a million children out of school, so I hold the cause very close to my heart because I believe every child deserves the right to an education,” he says. For the young singer, who jokes that long hours have left him feeling like he’s “living” at McKinley High, lending his support to the organization is a more than fitting way to help those in need. “I’m all about school at the moment,” he says. “Even if it’s just one dollar it can change a kid’s life and get a kid back to school. You’re giving a kid a future.”